Welcome to FTW’s NASCAR Feud of the Week, where we provide a detailed breakdown of the latest absurd, funny and sometimes legitimate controversies and issues within the racing world – or, in this case, look back on an epic one.

Tuesday morning around 8 a.m., Kyle Busch showed up to Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s podcast studio with a box of donuts and a case of beer.

Busch was coming off his second consecutive victory of the season – he won the Food City 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway on Monday – and was dropping by to talk with Junior about their longtime feud, which dates back to the 2007 NASCAR Cup Series season.

Eleven years later, they’ve settled their differences and moved on – their respective fans have not – but until the latest episode of the Dale Jr. Download, the two had never talked about the race that officially blew everything up – the 2008 Crown Royal Presents the Dan Lowry 400 at Richmond Raceway.

The former enemies sat down, along with podcast co-host Mike Davis, and rehashed the details of the infamous race – where Busch wrecked Earnhardt, who had the lead, in the final laps, though neither won (Clint Bowyer did) – that truly ignited their feud and divided their fan bases as the 10 year anniversary approaches. NASCAR will race Saturday at Richmond.

Earnhardt: I was really surprised 10 years later, fans are still so freaking passionate about that night.

Busch: Yup, I hear about it all the time.

Earnhardt: And I know there’s a direct divide between our fan base, and we call them unicorns, the ones that like both of us. … And they’re really rare.

Busch: Yes, absolutely.

Recalling the details that divided the two drivers, they also frequently referenced an oral history of the 2008 Richmond race and the events leading up to it on JeffGluck.com.

From a fan and driver side, much of the built up tension stemmed from Earnhardt switching to Hendrick Motorsports after the 2007 season, and Busch departing that same year from HMS to drive for Joe Gibbs Racing, the team he’s still with.

In addition to wrecking each other multiple times in the 2007 season, the pair agreed much of their feud was the result of misunderstandings and assumptions – particularly the false narrative that Earnhardt helped push Busch out of HMS.

In recent years, the two worked out their differences as their business ventures brought them together. But they both wondered what kind of friends or even teammates they could have been had they talked things out back in the day and both ended up driving for HMS.

Busch: I wish there would have been a chance that you and I would have been able to like get together while all this was kind of going on and just be like, “What are you doing? What are you doing? What can we do together?” Now, at this time, at this stage of my career and my age, I would have done that.

But as Davis pointed out, as Busch was in his early 20s and Junior in his early 30s, they were both exceptionally stubborn and hard-headed, ignoring the weekly opportunities they had at races to settle their differences.

Earnhardt: I think he’s right. We were both young.

Busch: He was older, though.

Earnhardt: I was. Still, I wasn’t mature enough even at that point. But yeah, I think people are going to say, “Well [expletive], it worked out for Kyle,” and it did. You’re in an amazing organization, done amazing things there. But who knows what could have happened had we got together and figured out a way to – had we become teammates, who knows what would have happened?

Shifting their attention to the 2008 Richmond race specifically, Junior acknowledged he knew immediately that Busch didn’t spin him out in the final laps on purpose. It was simply two drivers fighting for every edge, as Earnhardt drove on the top of the track and Busch on the inside.

Earnhardt: I’m going, he went in the corner a little higher trying to get a better arc into the corner because a shallow entry on the bottom there wasn’t going to work, and he knew that. So as I’m moving up the track, he’s like, “OK, if you’re gonna go up the track, I’m gonna go up the track a little bit, and I’m going to get a better angle for the exit.” And you know, just got down in there and got loose up underneath me.

Busch: Well the other thing too was like each lap, there was a little bit more, a little bit more, a little bit deeper, little bit more. I’m getting the sense of urgency. …

Earnhardt: I think the one thing that bugged me, and this was just you at that age, was when you were in front of a microphone the things that you would say. … If it was just, “Hey man, that was racing, I got in the corner too deep.” But you wouldn’t. You would get out of the car and go, “Ah [expletive] it. I don’t care. So what he got wrecked?” And you had such a chip on your shoulder.

(Jerome Miron-USA TODAY Sports)

They can both laugh about it now – and did – even if their fans refuse to and still hate the opposing drivers. Earnhardt called the events leading up to the Richmond race and how it ended “a recipe for disaster,” and Busch agreed.

Busch: My mindset in that moment was somebody else, if it was a teammate or if it was somebody that I actually kind of (was) like getting along with, there probably would have been two more inches given, right? An extra [expletive] given. But in this moment, there was no [expletive] given. So it was kind of like, “Eh, I got loose, yeah, whatever,” like you said. So yeah, sorry.

Earnhardt admitted for different stages of his career after that, he was “consumed” by their rivalry and always knew where Busch was at the track.

But now, they’re both happy and relieved that it’s over – and that they can joke about it now.

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